New Homeland Security Secretary On A Border Tour
Newly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is scheduled to be in McAllen, Texas, on Tuesday, touring border security operations there. He then travels to Arizona for stops in Douglas and Tucson on Wednesday.
It's his first visit to the Mexican border since his confirmation last month and it comes at a time when the country is gearing up for a major policy debate about what to do with the approximately 11 million people living in the country illegally.
Johnson has said he favors "common-sense immigration reform" and he favors deporting people who pose a threat to public safety and national security.
Johnson will make himself available to news media on both stops but his department hasn't said whether he'll meet with business leaders and investors along the U.S.-Mexico border.
On Friday, President Barack Obama signed in the new budget, allowing for a one percent increase to Customs and Border Protection, specifically to hire 2,000 new CBP inspectors at the ports of entry. That's something the business communities along the border have long argued for because of the expensive wait times that shipping trucks have to endure to enter the U.S.
The visit came just after Tucson Democratic Rep. Ron Barber invited Johnson to see the border for himself and pointed out that the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector continues to be the busiest in the nation in terms of drug trafficking. That is something that former Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano never seemed comfortable in addressing. She constantly pressed the point that border was under control but only used lower immigrant apprehensions as her example. The Rio Grande Valley Sector topped the Tucson Sector for apprehensions in 2012.
When he arrives in Douglas, Johnson is expected to also be briefed on a series of killings in the Mexican border city of Agua Prieta, Sonora, just across the line. At least eight people were killed there this past weekend. The gunfights forced the closures of schools in Agua Prieta, and Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels ordered deputies on standby over the weekend. The shootings continued into Tuesday.
